Terraferma 1.0 stars

A household of sagging career fishermen living on a paradisaical Sicilian island that doubles as a summer getaway for wealthy tourists come face-to-face with a well-intentioned, message-laden script. The set-up and introduction of the characters showed promise. Director Emanuele Crialese opens by elegantly casting a net over the audience — we assume it's the fish’s point-of-view — hoping to reel us into his thawed Frozen River. It was when the red flags start lapping the shore of the popular resort destination - in the form of a raft of determined Ethiopian refugees - that I began paying less attention to the screen and more to the DVD counter. Babies conceived in rape, illegal immigration, police brutality, parental mortality, teen angst, the importance of family values, and other various and sundry social dilemmas combine to choke the life out of every one of Crialese's handsomely arranged anamorphic frames. With Filippo Pucillo, Donatella Finocchiaro, and Mimmo Cuticchio. 2011.